


Put That Down, You Don't Know Where It's Been!

by leonidaslion



Series: Don't Talk To Strangers [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Character Turned Into Vampire, Dark Dean Winchester, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:58:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has plans for Jo...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put That Down, You Don't Know Where It's Been!

Dean sat silently on the bench of the confessional, head tilted back and eyes shut. Listening. Waiting for the main doors of the church to open. As long as she stuck to the same schedule she had for the past five days, Jo should be arriving any minute now.

Sweat lay in a thin layer over Dean’s feverish skin: enough to be annoying, but not enough to ruin the carefully constructed costume he was wearing for Jo’s benefit. The blood of the priest he’d fed on less than an hour ago was smeared across his face. Drops of it still leaked down from his drenched hair, at increasing intervals now that it was beginning to dry. More of the sticky material was on his hands, and his ripped shirt was practically soaked in it. The long, shallow slice low on his stomach could be seen through one of the tears, and there was nothing hiding the wide gash in his forehead.

Those injuries weren’t responsible for his fever, though. They weren’t making each breath a struggle for the air he wasn’t sure that he actually needed anymore. No, it was the tiny nick in the palm of his left hand that was the problem: the place where he’d cut himself with a knife dipped in dead man’s blood.

The whole thing was just idiotic enough—just dangerous enough—to work.

As the creak of opening doors reached him, Dean grinned. Despite the pain and the sickness infecting his body, he felt only heated anticipation. Time to see if the gamble was going to pay off.

His fingers tapped restlessly against his thigh as the sound of footsteps headed past the confessional and toward the font situated to its left. The cloying scent of garlic was even worse up close, but Dean had checked two days ago and he wasn’t actually allergic to it. It was just damned difficult to stomach with his senses heightened like this.

He waited for the sound of water gurgling into an empty container and then moved. Edging the door open, he slipped out, careful to ensure that his prey didn’t notice him emerging. Then he screwed his face up into a mask of weariness and pain, and stumbled forward to fall against the nearest pew.

Jo gave a little scream as she turned around, raising the flask that she was filling with holy water. Dean clung to the side of the pew with one arm and looked up at her with a weakness that was only partially feigned. He saw her twitch forward at the sight of him, already wanting to help, and hummed happily inside. He’d been pretty confident before, but now he was certain that this was going to work.

“Jo,” he moaned, letting his grip slip and sinking down onto the stone floor.

“Stay back, Dean,” Jo said, edging away with her flask held out in front of her. “This is filled with holy water.”

Dean blinked twice before letting confusion fill his face. “What? I don’t—Jo, damn it, I need help—” He hunched over his stomach with a sudden grimace, and from the corner of his eye saw her arm jerk.

Water from her flask splashed over his head. Dean waited long enough for her to see that he wasn’t smoking or burning and then shook his head, sending blood-reddened water around him in a spray.

“What the fuck, Jo?” he groaned, flopping sideways.

She was at his side in an instant, one hand sliding around behind his back to support him even as she pressed a crucifix against his cheek. Dean let confusion and pain flicker in his eyes as he twisted his head to look at her, and in the next instant Jo was tossing the crucifix to one side and pulling him into a hug.

“Jesus, you’re alive!” she breathed.

“Not for long if you keep that up,” he grumbled, and she immediately pulled back a little.

“Sorry. It’s just that Sam called and told me—”

Dean interrupted her with a bitter snort. “Let me guess. He told you I was possessed, or I’d gone darkside, or I was some kind of shapeshifter, right?”

“Vampire,” Jo confirmed, helping him to his feet.

“And you believed him?”

“What was I supposed to do? Ask him to fax me some proof? He doesn’t seem like the practical joke type.” After a brief pause, she added, “And he was practically sobbing over the phone.”

 _Pathetic,_ Dean thought with a flash of embarrassment on Sam’s behalf. He wished she was lying, but he didn’t think she was. It sounded like something that sap would do.

Although he didn’t need her help to keep his footing, Dean looped his arm around Jo’s neck. Being so close to her was really fucking tempting, even though he’d drunk deeply from the priest and the solitary alter boy who had been helping the old man set up for the morning mass. More tempting than he’d thought it would be.

His head lolled sideways, the bridge of his nose pressing up against all that smooth skin. Up close, he could smell Jo underneath the garlic oil she’d taken to bathing in. She smelled like peaches and fresh cream, and Dean suspected that she’d taste even better.

After a few seconds of breathing her in, he realized that it wasn’t just the hunger or the scent of her blood running _(sofuckingclosealmosttasteit)_ beneath a tissue-thin layer of skin setting him off. It was the knowledge that she _felt_ for him.

In some way, Jo loved the man that he’d been. She trusted him. The idea of taking that trust and using it to destroy her … The sharp agony of betrayal in her eyes would be good. So goddamned good.

 _It’ll be even better if you follow through with the fucking plan, asshole._

With a concentrated effort, Dean turned his face away again. He didn’t have to fake the lack of focus in his eyes now: need blurred his vision. “He’s possessed,” he said. “Again.” Hunger roughened his voice, but he figured that it sounded close enough to anger or pain that it wouldn’t reawaken any of Jo’s suspicions.

“Possessed?” Jo asked.

The sudden scent of her fear made his head spin, and it took Dean a moment to realize that she had started to move them back toward the font. He immediately let his weight go leaden, halting her where she was. He wanted to get them out the door before the morning pious wandered in, not head back toward the place where the bodies he’d stashed were probably starting to draw flies.

“He’s not here,” he assured Jo. “I shook him off a few hours ago. But he’s looking for me. Can you—I know this is a lot to ask, but I need—”

“My place,” she said, and moved toward the front doors again. Good girl. “It’s safe.”

Dean knew it was; he’d been counting on it. Bobby had told him about Jo’s phone call after Meg made her little visit in Sam’s body. Had told him about driving over to her place and putting a devil’s trap over every door and window so that she’d be able to sleep at night without waking up in a cold sweat every time someone slammed a door or dropped something on one of the floors above her. Dean remembered feeling bad for her. Now, he just felt a warm glow of satisfaction. So far, so good.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t mention it.” Jo shot a glance at him as they paused by the front door. “It’s a twenty-minute drive from here. Are you okay to wait that long? Cause you look like shit.”

Of course he did. He’d taken his time slicing himself up: had used a dash of dead man’s blood to slow his system down and keep the cuts open, and the priest’s blood for that extra, finishing touch. He hadn’t had a chance to check himself out in the mirror before it had been time to stow himself in the confessional, but then again, he hadn’t needed to. He’d left behind that kind of insecurity when he’d shuffled off his mortal coil.

“I _feel_ like shit,” he said. “But it’ll keep. Looks worse than it is.”

Jo took him at his word and opened the door with one elbow. Dean winced as she moved them outside into the overcast early morning, but luckily she was busy watching out for any passing civilians and didn’t notice. Even with the cloud cover—even with the layer of sunscreen he’d lathered on himself before heading into the church this morning—it was still like standing too close to a fire. His skin wasn’t actually burning, but it was a close thing. The sooner they got out of here and into Jo’s apartment, the better.

As uncomfortable as he was, however, Dean knew that he’d been right to make his move in daylight. Even though she’d been mostly convinced when the holy water and the cross hadn’t injured him, there had still been a thin layer of tension left in Jo: so subtle that she probably hadn’t been consciously aware of it. It was only now, when he was out in the daylight with her and not bursting into flames, that the last of her wariness bleed away.

 _Rookie move,_ he thought disdainfully. If there had been one thing Dad drilled into them over and over, it was that you didn’t hunt something until you’d separated fact from fiction. Until you’d studied the fucker and had a game plan on how best to waste it.

That particular lesson was precisely why Dean had ended up waiting instead of going after Jo the first night he’d arrived here. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that she was laboring under the assumption that the legends had gotten it right: that vamps were allergic to garlic, and that holy water and other sacred objects were acceptable weapons. That daylight turned them into a pile of dust. Dean had slipped into her apartment one day when she was out at work, and she even had a wooden stake under her pillow. It would have been cute if it hadn’t been so goddamned pathetic.

Sam could have told Jo that the Anne Rice and Buffy stuff was a load of crap, but he’d obviously been too preoccupied to do so. He’d probably assumed that Jo was hooked into the hunter community, and then he’d made a second mistake in assuming that vampire lore was common knowledge. Dean, who’d had a few more conversations with their fellow hunters than Sam, knew that the opposite was true.

Hunters who specialized in vamps tended to be loners, like Elkins and Gordon, and they weren’t big on sharing info with anyone who wasn’t one of the club. Gordon had told Dean as much over beers when they’d first met. The only reason that John Winchester had known how to handle the sons of bitches was because he’d trained with Elkins, and the old man had been hoping he’d found a replacement—at least until John turned on him.

Like father, like son.

A laugh bubbled behind Dean’s lips as Jo lowered him into her beat-up Honda and he forced it down. He managed to turn his smirk into a grimace before she pulled back enough to see his face. It must have looked convincing because she hesitated, eyes going all soft and empathetic.

“Maybe I should take you to a hospit—”

“I’ll be fine.” He could still see the doubt in her face, so he played his trump card. “It’s not safe: Sam’ll be able to find us there.”

Jo went white and nodded. That sweet, sweet fear smell wafted stronger than the reek of garlic, making Dean's gums ache.

“Yeah, okay.” She slammed the passenger door shut and then sprinted around to the other side.

 _So fucking eager to die,_ Dean thought, and then pretended to pass out. He wasn’t in the mood to make small talk with his dinner.


End file.
